New York City Serenade
by dream vs nightmare
Summary: Emma Swan lives a pretty normal life in Manhattan. Sure, she might dream of a stranger with startling blue eyes and an accent you wouldn't soon forget, but other than that, life with her son is totally normal. Or at least, it is, until said stranger shows up on her doorstep. Emma/Graham AU.


_Or, the one where Graham (isn't dead and) comes to Manhattan to try and convince Emma to come back to Storybrooke with him. A oneshot for now, but more chapters can be added if you guys want to see the idea expanded._

**Disclaimer: **_If I owned Once Upon A Time, Graham never would've died and Gremma would be as canon as Snowing, okay? Okay._

* * *

Blue, Emma thought as she slid a steaming mug of hot cocoa across the table to her son. Or were they green? Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to remember the exact shade the stranger's eyes were when she'd seen him in her dream - and her face contorted even further as she realized that somehow, he wasn't a stranger.

"Mom, you forgot something." Henry said as he looked up into her face.

She snapped her fingers, murmuring, "Right! Cinnamon" before moving to go grab the little tin of it from off the counter.

"Here you go." He smiled at her as she handed it to him and she thought, this was all she needed. Her and her son sitting down to eat breakfast together, like they had done every morning for...well, as long as she could remember.

The two sprinkled cinnamon on their drinks, made white by the cover of whipped cream, before clinking their mugs against each other's in a toast. To them, to the morning, to the life they had.

And what a life it was. While she'd say it was close to perfect, sometimes, she couldn't help but feel like something was missing. Her eyes flickered over to the space where Neal should've been sitting and it was all she could do to smile at her son as he looked to the same spot. Because that's where he _would_ be, and _should_ be. But he wasn't.

A light knock on the door brought Emma out of her reverie, and Henry's gaze moved to hers. "Is anyone coming over?"

"No..."

The knock came again, a touch louder this time. "Henry, wait here."

He nodded and resumed cutting up his pancakes as she got up from the table and headed over to the door, turning off the stereo as she went. _Charlie's Girl _had always been one of Neal's favorites, and though she tried not to think about it, they used to spend long afternoons dancing around the apartment to it before...well, before._  
_

She unlocked the deadbolt and swung the door open, all thoughts of her late husband fading from her mind the moment she saw who was standing on the other side of it.

Him.

The literal man of her dreams.

"Emma." He said around a smile. The skin beneath her bracelet warmed as she looked up into his face. His eyes were blue with flecks of grey, the sky right before a storm, and something in her broke. Shattered. Screamed.

Because somehow, someway. She knew he wasn't supposed to be here.

He moved to take another step closer, murmuring, "I'm sorry I-"

But she cut him off. Couldn't take it if he kept talking in that soft, lilting voice. "Woah, do I know you?"

"I feel like we've met before. Maybe at the park, a Starbucks?" Her eyes darkened as they pleaded with him to say no, to say that they'd never met before. She couldn't shake this feeling that they had, and she wanted him to prove her wrong.

He dipped his head closer to her but didn't make another move toward her when he said, "I know you're not going to believe me."

"Not going to believe what?" She raised an eyebrow at him.

"My explanation as to why I have this." He said as he brought his hand out from behind his back.

She couldn't help but laugh when she saw what he was holding - Henry's book of fairy tales. "You're a life saver! I've been looking for that all over - where did you find it?"

"I found it laying open on a park bench as you and your boy headed back home."

"Ah, observant." She said around a smile.

"Important for a cop." He added, smiling right back.

"Well, I imagine it's good for our tourist business, but bad for our local signage."

He furrowed his eyebrows at her.

"It...it's a joke. Because you got mud all over my welcome sign?" She pointed to the mat that lay between them and dammit, he gave her that grin again, the one that swept the shattered pieces of her heart back together again the way it always had - but how could that have been when they'd only just met?

"Well. I do apologize about the sign. And ah...I hope you enjoy your book, Miss Swan." He said as he walked backwards down the hall, watching her as he did - and it was only when he was almost out of sight that she realized something.

"Hey, wait! I didn't get your name!"

"Sheriff Humbert." She could see him smiling even from here and it stirred up a funny feeling in her stomach. "But you can call me Graham."

Emma closed the door behind her once he was gone. She walked back down the hall with Henry's book in her hands and set it down on the table next to his now-empty plate. His gaze passed back and forth from the book to the door, eyes alit with wonder and something else she couldn't place.

"Did he...did he give this back to you?"

She nodded, the ghost of a smile on her face as she moved to sit across from him. "Yeah, he did. Seems like a really nice guy."

That something in his eyes disappeared at her words, replaced by clear concern.

"Are you feeling okay?" He raised an eyebrow at her and leaned over their plates to place his hand on her forehead. "You're kinda warm, Mom. Maybe you're coming down with something."

She rolled her eyes at him but couldn't quite manage to keep herself from smiling - for real, this time. "What? Just because I say a guy seems really nice?"

"That's it, I'm calling Walsh to tell him you can't make it to dinner tonight. You are _definitely _under the weather." He got up as though to go get the cordless phone off its cradle on the counter when it started to ring.

He squinted at the caller ID. "Oh, hey, it's him, now."

She joined him at the counter and reached for the phone, pressing a kiss to his forehead as she did. "I'll see you after school, 'kay?"

"'Kay." He kissed her cheek before walking out to the living room to go grab his backpack. She saw him off to school just as Walsh murmured a low, "Hey, baby. Are we still on for dinner tonight?"

Her thoughts strayed to the kind sheriff with the lilting accent, lingering on the way his laugh touched his eyes. But all thoughts of him drifted away when she heard her boyfriend whisper, "I was thinking I could have you for dessert" in a way that made a shiver dance down her spine.

"Yeah, we're still on for dinner. And we'll see about dessert."

* * *

She woke up from a nap she didn't remember taking and got dressed for dinner just as the sun kissed the top of the high-rise apartments that surrounded hers. Her mind lingered on the set of his lips and the tear on his cheek as he leaned forward to - her eyebrows furrowed again. As he leaned forward to what?

That was always when she woke up - and this time was no different. She sometimes dreamt of Neal, and even Jake...but never Walsh. And certainly not like - warmth pooled in her stomach when she remembered how he'd looked at her just before they kissed - _that_. He said he'd remembered. But what did he remember?

And why couldn't _she_ remember?

She did her best to push the thought away as she shrugged on her favorite red coat over her dress. It didn't matter. He was just some guy who'd returned her son's book - whatever he may or may not have remembered was none of her business. Besides, she had a date with an incredible guy tonight; an incredibly guy she happened to call her boyfriend.

What she felt for him was real. This other guy, this Graham, maybe he was just...

A way out, she thought absently as she got into her little yellow VW Bug and headed to the restaurant. Henry had left a note for her on the kitchen counter that she'd glanced over as she'd left their apartment - it said he'd gone over Nick's house after school and had planned on staying the night. Though she'd never heard of the place her and Walsh were eating out at tonight, she thought that knowing him, the restaurant was going to be wildly expensive and lavishly not her style.

Dinner always came with a price, and as the straps of her high heels gave her one blister after another as she walked, she had a feeling that she was just beginning to pay up.

* * *

Emma walked into the lounge and shrugged off her coat as she gazed around at the place. He'd picked something a little more low key than she'd thought. Fancy, yes. Lavish, no. Her gaze fell across the tables before her, looking for Walsh - he in turn was doing the same.

They smiled when they spotted each other, and he stood up as she walked over to their table. "Hey."

"Sorry I'm late," She murmured as she draped her coat over the back of the chair in front of her before moving towards him.

"I'm guessin' that means ya caught the guy." He said around a smile before moving his hands to cup either side of her face as he leaned forward to give her a quick kiss - had he lingered any longer, she was sure it would've given her butterflies.

"So optimistic - I like it." She smiled back at him as they moved to sit in their seats, him murmuring, "And if you hadn't, you woulda canceled" all the while.

"And you know me too well." Emma said as she settled into her chair.

"Emma Swan always gets her man." Walsh said as he settled into his.

A waiter walked by their table, handing her a glass of wine as he went. She grinned at her boyfriend and added, "And apparently, my drink" before thanking the waiter as he left to check on the surrounding tables. And Walsh, ever the gentleman, thanked him as well.

"Hey, how'd Henry's volcano do at the science fair?" He asked as they took up their wine glasses - she figured he must've gotten his before she arrived.

"It was Pompeii all over again. Thank you for your help." They clinked their glasses together.

"Come on, all I did was convince him not to use real lava." Walsh murmured over the rim of his glass as he brought it to his lips.

Both sipped at their wine for a moment before Emma set her glass down. "His teachers did appreciate that."

She took up her menu faster than he, smiling a bit. "Let's eat, I'm starving!"

And she really was - deciding to run on a bearclaw and a mug of Granny's coffee all day probably wasn't the best decision she'd made all day, but what could she say? The cafe was the closest place to where she worked, and they didn't start serving lunch until long after she was supposed to be in.

"Let's do it." He agreed as he too, took up his menu.

They talked of things over their meals, everything from the movie they'd curled up on his couch to watch the week before to the way Henry was progressing in his classes. And she thought, this was how it should be. Her and him and Henry.

As she took one last bite of her steak, her thoughts strayed once more to the sheriff she'd met that afternoon. She couldn't get him out of her head. He was handsome, that much was for sure. And kind, too, though maybe a bit soft-spoken. But the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled was what really stuck with her.

"You happy?"

Wait, what? Emma tilted her head to the side and raised an eyebrow at his question.

"With your food, ya happy?" He gestured to her near-empty plate.

"I'm beyond happy." She said around a smile as she finished eating. He reached across the table to take her hand in his, squeezing her fingers with his own before pulling away.

And then he gave her _that_ smile, a brilliant show of teeth that still managed to knock her off her feet every time she saw it.

"I'll be right back." He murmured before standing up to head to the inner part of the restaurant.

"Okay."

He winked at her as he left, and she drew out her phone out of her coat pocket to check her emails once he'd gone. A waitress cleared their plates away in the meantime, and she thanked her briefly before turning her gaze back to her phone. She had a message from Jack about their latest case, and she moved to type a reply just as Walsh slid back into his seat.

"Hang on, I'm just gonna finish this quick work thing."

Her eyes widened when she looked up to find that it wasn't her boyfriend who sat in the seat across from her, but the man who'd been on her mind all afternoon.

"Graham."

"I can explain, truly." He said as he raised up his hands in defense. "You were going to get a parking ticket, and I wanted to tell you in time so you could move your Volkswagen."

"How...how do you know what my car looks like?" Though her voice didn't waver, her knees shook under the table. "We just met earlier today."

"I know what this looks like." He said as he blew air from his lips and shook his head. "This looks like I'm some crazy stalker from a bad horror film, yeah?"

She nodded. "Yeah, you're right on that."

"But hear me out, first. I need...I need to talk to you." He cast his eyes around the room before meeting her gaze once more. "You were right before, we do know each other. And I think I have something of yours."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "Of mine? What, did I leave a scarf on that park bench, too?"

"Oh, that you did." He said around a smile that had her heart leaping against her chest in a way that Walsh's didn't.

"I can't stay long. And I know I shouldn't have crashed your date, and for that I'm sorry." He leaned forward to look her full in the face, his eyes glimmering under the lights that twinkled around the table. "Truly."

They're blue, she thought as she too leaned forward. And it didn't matter that she'd dreamt of them, of him, a hundred times over. It didn't matter that she found herself thinking of him more and more often as time went by. It didn't even matter that she'd dreamt of him as he was now, looking at her with the most open expression she'd ever seen on someone's face.

Because she couldn't trust him.

And she told him as much, murmuring, "Look. I want to believe you. I do."

"But you've still got that wall around your heart, huh?" His eyes became as deep and dark as the night outside, and she shivered from the crown of her head down to the tips of her toes.

His words nearly knocked the breath out of her - how did he know something like that? She could only think of one way, one possibility. And even though it hurt to ask, she needed to know.

"Did you know my husband?"

He bit his lip and looked away from her.

"Look at me. Did you know him?" He did as she said, and she found herself relaxing - but only minutely.

"You could say that." He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and slid it across the table to her. "I know that you're confused about who you are." He murmured as he gestured to the tables around them before his eyes met hers once more. "About all this, too. So I'm going to tell you. If you want to know about who you are, and where you're really from, come to this address."

"How do I know I can trust you?" She took the slip of paper and tried not to show any visible reaction when their fingertips touched - it was just for a second, but the contact still sent a shiver down her spine.

He gave her that smile again. "Look into my eyes. Use your superpower, see if I'm being honest with you."

Emma looked into his eyes in challenge, asking every deity she knew of to show her that he was lying. But she saw no trickery in the depths of his eyes, so blue she had to wonder if they'd been made out of the sky and the sea just before the light of dawn.

"Just because you believe something doesn't make it true. And you're lying." She told him as she settled back into her chair. Though she was usually very good at being dishonest with someone she didn't know very well, she found it hard to push the lie out of her mouth around this guy.

"Am I?" He tilted his head to the side, grinning.

"Come find out." Graham murmured as he moved to get up from the table. He added, "Come find me" over his shoulder as he disappeared inside the depths of the restaurant. Her gaze never wandered from his outline as he left, even when Walsh returned to take his place.

* * *

**fin**


End file.
